Picardo To Guest Star On 'Dead Zone'

Star Trek: Voyager's Doctor, Robert Picardo, will get a change of habitat when he guest-stars on The Dead Zone, the USA Network series co-created by former Star Trek executive producer Michael Piller.

The series has been on hiatus but returns Sunday, July 6 to USA Network with new episodes, according to John L. Adams, who plays Bruce on the show and writes a column for its official web site.

According to Adams, Picardo will appear in an episode entitled "The Storm" which picks up where last season's "Playing God" and the second season finale, "Zion", left off.

Adams described Picardo as "very talented and uproariously hilarious", along with fellow guest star Jane Lynch of Best in Show. "I'll tell you right now that the scenes with them are funny, and I mean uptown funny," he wrote.

Recently promoted Associate Producer Eric Stillwell, a former Star Trek production associate, told the Trek Nation that Picardo plays Mitch McMurtry, a midwesterner traveling with family in a Winnebago on a vacation tour of Maine.

"The family has a chance — and humorous — encounter with Johnny Smith (Anthony Michael Hall)," Stillwell explained.

Asked whether the role might become recurring, Stillwell said, "On The Dead Zone, you never know. In this same episode, Johnny also has a chance encounter with the Carnival Man who ran the Wheel of Fortune game in the pilot episode two years ago."

Adams said that the episode's title refers to an electrical storm resembling the one that caused Johnny's accident eight years earlier, which may keep Johnny and Bruce from safely reaching a retreat.

"This is, without a doubt, the most challenging script we've ever done," he wrote.